A very comprehensive 2011 report that contains a basic introduction to PROMs and their potential to improve healthcare services, as well as recommendations for methods of data collection and interpretation and understanding outcomes. Included is an explanation of what duties particular healthcare organizations, hospitals and their clinicians as well as government authorities would have to take on in order to develop PROM-based healthcare.
From the report:
“There has been a marked shift internationally in thinking about what health is and how it is measured. Traditional clinical ways of measuring health and the effects of treatment are increasingly accompanied by, or indeed replaced by, PROMs. In broad terms, PROMs comprise a series of structured questions that ask patients about their health from their point of view…
“This shift in focus is most evident in the appraisal of new health care technologies, where products and practices are subject to rigorous evaluation. The United States’ Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which has recently recommended the inclusion of patient reported outcomes (PRO) in US clinical trials (Food and Drug Administration 2006), notes: ‘the use of PRO instruments is part of a general movement toward the idea that the patient, properly queried, is the best source of information about how he or she feels’ (Bren 2006).
“In parts of the NHS, most notably in the appraisal of new health technologies by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence 2008a), the use of PRO data is already commonplace, and, indeed, is a required part of the evidence used in the appraisal of, and decision-making about, health technologies. Over the course of several decades, clinical, health services and social sciences researchers have produced literally thousands of validated instruments that facilitate the consistent, reliable measurement of patient-reported health. Patients’ perspectives on their health outcomes can now be measured in most clinical areas.”
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